France,Belgium challenge result of DR Congo election

Tshisekedi is the leader of the main opposition party, the Union for Democracy and Social Progress [File: Kenny Katombe/Reuters

France and Belgium are challenging the outcome of the Democratic Republic of the Congo‘s presidential election, with France’s foreign minister saying the declared victory of opposition chief Felix Tshisekedi was “not consistent” with the results and that his rival Martin Fayulu appeared to have won.

In remarks made just hours after the provisional results were announced on Thursday, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Tshisekedi’s opposition rival Fayulu, who was declared the runner up, should have been declared the winner.

“It really seems that the declared results … are not consistent with the true results,” he told France’s CNews channel. “On the face of it, Mr Fayulu was the leader coming out of these elections.”

He said DR Congo’s powerful Catholic Church, which deployed more than 40,000 observers to monitor the elections, knew who had really won the vote with their observations suggesting a win for Fayulu.

“CENCO (National Episcopal Conference of the Congo) carried out an inspection and declared a result which was totally different,” he said, referring to the body representing the country’s Catholic bishops.

Belgium to raise results in UNSC

Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders also cast doubt on the election result, saying his country would use its temporary seat on the UN Security Council to seek clarification about Tshisekedi surprise victory.

“We have some doubts that we need to check and which will be debated in the coming days in the Security Council,” Reynders, whose country was Congo’s former colonial power, told Belgian public broadcaster RTBF.

The result could lead to the vast country’s first democratic transfer of power since independence from Belgium in 1960, with Kabila due to leave office this month after 18 years in power – and two years after the official end of his mandate.